Rabbit Hole

Hand woven, double-faced twill with Harrisville shetland wool, fulled, needle felted. I have woven blankets for many years starting w/ pattern weaves and moving to using the blanket as a substrate for "painting in wool." It's really fun. I put the design in by hand w/ felting needles and then move to my home Janome felting machine to set the design in. The story of the blanket follows.

Long ago and far away, I was a child. I lived in the desert in the middle of the oil fields in California. I left at age 18 and never went back. Recently a series of small events occurred in my life, and I began to re-invision the place where I grew up. This weaving is a map of my childhood haunts amid the creatures and features, the trails, the routes and wanderings of my youth. It began with contact with an old classmate and a magazine article about the dire consequences of steam extraction of heavy crude oil and its effect on my home of long ago. See the story and photo of my work published in Orion Magazine.